School Story:
Ping Pong Story about Mr. Wilcox.
Old Senior Academy had back hall used for gym class ping pong tables. This hall was behind the gym where the exit for the girls and boys locker rooms used to be. A bunch of us noticed that they stored a ping pong table in the small room adjacent to the wrestling mat room. We noticed the room had a bottom grate for air circulation which were attached with Philips head screws. The next day one of us brought a screwdriver to school and during the time between the last period and the busses leaving we removed the grate, opened the door and reinstalled the grate. This gave us unfettered access to the ping pong table without any supervision or bother from anyone. It was great. Unfortunately, a janitor and a teacher discovered us. I was fortunate enough to escape out the back door of the school before everyone was caught. I took off and got on my bus and went home. The other guys with me were Scott Delforte, Jim Chiappone, John (Fuzz) Foley, Steve Steinberger and Jim Clark. They all got in big trouble from what I heard through the grapevine.
Well the next day after the Pledge of Allegiance, my name was called on the announcements to come to the office immediately to see Mr. Wilcox. I was scared to death. I slowly walked to the office thinking my days on earth were over. If Mr. Wilcox didn’t kill me, my parents surely would. I contemplated scooting off the Mexico or somewhere. I arrived in the front office and the office personnel had looks of sorrow and pity upon me, knowing my doom was imminent. I had to wait quietly until the Principal was ready for me. It seemed an eternity.
Upon entering Mr. Wilcox’s office he quietly asked me to take a seat and wait for him to finish a few items. The look on his face was stern and my fears appeared to be well founded. Eventually, he looked up and told me that a security incident had occurred the previous afternoon and that 5 other students had been caught in a bad situation that he was sincerely concerned about. He went on about the need for proper supervision of all students while in the school and that locked doors were locked for a reason. Any violation of such security measures were to be taken seriously and dealt with severely. While I was a senior I had never been called into Mr. Wilcox’s office before. Mr. Wilcox then told me that the 5 other students who had been talked to individually all confirmed that the whole idea, the screwdriver and the process was committed solely by me and they simply did as I told them and that I was the primary culprit and instigator. While I tried to deny this, he went on that it was very unusual for 5 separate stories taken individually to be exactly the same since none of the students were had the time to form such a scheme. They had to be telling the truth and it was I who was untruthful. I immediately, thought to myself, what kind of friends do I have that would throw me under the bus like they did. Then I thought some more and of course, that was exactly the kind of friends I had!
After the jig was up Mr. Wilcox broke out in a big smile and put his arm around me and told me he had all of them in his office and he helped them cook up the whole story to pin it all on me. He said they took close to a half hour laughing and scheming to scare me as much as possible.
The rest of the year, the ping pong tables were left out in the back hall for all students to play with until the busses left.
Mr. Wilcox was the most wonderful Principal and adult role model anyone could ever have. Every memory I have of Mr. Wilcox is nothing but fond and heartwarming. Everyone loved him and rightly so.
With fondest of memories,
Kerry Van Iseghem
